Category: Beat Happening

Beat Happening Week – Day 5: J is for Japan (an excerpt)

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TO CELEBRATE YESTERDAY’S RELEASE OF OUR 107TH 33 1/3 ON  BEAT HAPPENING, WE’RE PLEASED TO BRING YOU THE FIFTH AND FINAL INSTALLMENT OF BEAT HAPPENING WEEK BY AUTHOR BRYAN PARKER ! For readers who still haven’t heard the word about 33 1/3’s newest volume, Beat Happening, which was just released yesterday, the book is structured as an abecedary—an alphabet book. Each letter represents one element integral to Beat Happening and their debut album. Today, I’m happy to share one of those chapters–J is for Japan–in full. Many of the chapters delve into narrow,…

Beat Happening Week – Day 4: A Video Interview with Calvin Johnson

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TO CELEBRATE TODAY’S RELEASE OF OUR 107TH 33 1/3 ON  BEAT HAPPENING, WE’RE PLEASED TO BRING YOU THE FOURTH INSTALLMENT OF BEAT HAPPENING WEEK BY AUTHOR BRYAN PARKER ! In 2013, while on a trip to the Anacortes Unknown Music Series, I came up with the idea to interview Calvin Johnson on video. I was bringing some audio and video equipment to do some low budget documentary work about the festival anyway. Plus, I had spent some time around Calvin since first interviewing him in 2007, and had formed some friendships with…

Beat Happening Week – Day 3: That Beautiful Teenage Spirit

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TO CELEBRATE THE UPCOMING RELEASE OF OUR 107TH 33 1/3 ON  BEAT HAPPENING, WE’RE PLEASED TO BRING YOU THE THIRD INSTALLMENT OF BEAT HAPPENING WEEK BY AUTHOR BRYAN PARKER ! Early on, Calvin Johnson and Beat Happening in general rejected the idea of differentiating or restricting based on age. In addition to challenging the conventions of music, Beat Happening’s stance on all ages shows reevaluates the conventions of who has access to music. To this day, Calvin insists that the shows he plays be open to all ages. This mindset and personal…

Beat Happening Week – Day 2: Beat Happening’s Postmodern Pop

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TO CELEBRATE THE UPCOMING RELEASE OF OUR 107TH 33 1/3 ON  BEAT HAPPENING, WE’RE PLEASED TO BRING YOU THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF BEAT HAPPENING WEEK BY AUTHOR BRYAN PARKER ! Beat Happening’s eponymous first album laid the groundwork for the material central force Calvin Johnson’s K Records imprint released in the future, including several subsequent Beat Happening records. Using Beat Happening as a template, the trio built upon their initial ideas, deepening and broadening them with each album. Although as early as the 1960s, postmodern ways of thinking seeped into musical expression…

Beat Happening Week – Day 1: Discovering K, or How I Got to This Moment, Right Here

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TO CELEBRATE THE UPCOMING RELEASE OF OUR 107TH 33/13 ON  BEAT HAPPENING, WE’RE PLEASED TO BRING YOU THE VERY FIRST INSTALLMENT OF BEAT HAPPENING WEEK BY AUTHOR BRYAN PARKER ! Shortly after I moved to Austin, TX for university in 2001, I began to frequent the now defunct record store 33 Degrees north of campus, where Phil Waldorf (who’s now a partner in Dead Oceans/Secretly Canadian) sold me CDs and kept me headed in the right direction. It was in that store that I picked up a curious and slim CD from…

Upcoming Beat Happening Events (w/ Calvin Johnson) + SNEAK PEEK Foreword by Phil Elverum!

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As we’ve reminded you over and over again, we will soon be publishing Bryan Parker’s brand new 33 1/3 on Beat Happening’s Beat Happening–in just 21 (20?) short days! Be sure to pre-order your copy, and if you need more incentive (though why would you?) check out this SNEAK PEEK of the foreword, by Phil Elverum of The Microphones: The basic assumption that one is allowed to do whatever was taken for granted, and this certainty defines the feeling of Beat Happening for me, especially the first album. Listening to the recordings,…

Excerpt: Beat Happening’s Beat Happening by Bryan Parker, Coming in September!

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We are super excited to introduce one of our two new titles for September, Beat Happening’s Beat Happening by Bryan C. Parker! This is the album that sent a shockwave of empowerment through the nation’s cultural underground. In 1985, Beat Happening released their eponymous debut of lo-fi pop songs on K Records and challenged every conception held about music. At the center of the group was the enigmatic Calvin Johnson and his revolutionary vision of artistic creation. His foresight and industriousness allowed him to recruit to the K Records roster…

The 33 1/3 New Author Q&A: Bryan C. Parker

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 Today, we bring you a Q&A with Bryan C. Parker! He’ll be writing the new 33 1/3 on the Beat Happening. You can also read his 333Sound post about the Anacortes Unknown music festival here.   Tell us a bit about yourself in an extended author biography. I am a writer and photographer living in Austin, TX. I’m currently working as editor-in-chief of the blog Pop Press International and creator of the quarterly print journal True Sincerity. Through these outlets, I interview and photograph artists, working to document the local…

14 New 33 1/3 Titles: Coming 2015-2016

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LIVE FROM TIMES SQUARE… Bloomsbury is extremely proud to announce fourteen new 33 1/3 volumes…coming to a bookstore (and kindle/iPad) near you in: Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016 and Fall 2016. It was extremely difficult to select these titles from a pool of over 400 brilliant proposals so we hope you enjoy! Coming Spring 2015 Koji Kondo’s Super Mario Bros by Andrew Shartmann Coming Fall 2015 Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead by Buzz Poole Beat Happening’s Beat Happening by Bryan C. Parker Metallica’s Metallica (The Black Album) by David Masciotra Phish’s A Live One by…

New 33 1/3 Title: Beat Happening’s Beat Happening

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Bloomsbury is extremely proud to announce the third of fourteen new 33 1/3 volumes…coming to a bookstore (and kindle/iPad) near you in: Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016 and Fall 2016. It was extremely difficult to select these titles from a pool of over 400 brilliant proposals so we hope you enjoy! To highlight each new title and the author behind it, we’ll announce one book each day over the next two weeks. Beat Happening- Beat Happening By Bryan C. Parker Coming September 2015! This is the album that sent…